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Tuesday 4 December 2007

Diagnosed to Die: Hospice Extends to Babies

http://zenit.org/article-21175?l=english

Beautiful, beautiful article on families who refuse to capitulate to the Culture of Expediency, the Culture of Death.
A story of modern day saints....
.................
Doctors told Mary Kellett that her son Peter was not worth the resources it would take to treat the chromosomal abnormality they detected before his birth."Wrap him up in a blanket and let him go," they advised. But Peter's older sister discovered on the Internet that not all babies with trisomy 18 -- the condition affecting her little brother -- died before birth. In fact, she found out, some live two or three decades.
Peter's family did not want to abort him. Mary Kellett said the strong discouragement to treat Peter "was and remains the most painful feeling I have ever felt as a mother. ...

The organization she founded: http://www.prenatalpartnersforlife.org/
Prenatal diagnoses of illness are more and more common. And yet, even advanced medical technology can fail. The ANSA news agency reported from Florence in March that a healthy fetus was "mistakenly aborted." The baby boy was diagnosed in the womb with a defective esophagus. The mother chose to abort, and the procedure was performed at the 22nd week of pregnancy. However, during the abortion, the doctors realized the baby, who weighed just 1.1 pounds, was healthy, so they quickly moved to resuscitate the child. The boy died five days later from a brain hemorrhage incurred during the abortion.

(Explain to me again why abortion isn't murder?)

[Dr. Byron Calhoun, vice chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at West Virginia University-Charleston] acknowledged that "there is tremendous pressure by physicians, genetic counselors, and family members to perform abortions."
But, he says, "much of this stems from ignorance of hospice and the mistaken thought this will help the patients. Malpractice is part of the issue, but the majority of the issue is to 'do something' and to 'get it over with.' This approach does not work and actually traumatizes patients more."
The doctor lamented that many physicians and organizations are not aware of perinatal hospice and are often ill-equipped to deal with all the issues necessary to care for these patients and their families.

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